


(G)Olden Days

by WritingYay



Series: Complicated Best Friends [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ambiguous Relationships, Best Friends, Character Death, Consensual Infidelity, Cute, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Family Feels, Fix-It, Fluff, Happy Ending, Heartwarming, Humour, It is very sweet, Light Angst, Lovers, Mentions of Sexual Content, Multi, Parenthood, Parents, Past Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Past Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Pure cutness, School Play, Slight AU but not really, Swearing, They both dated Tony at different times, Unofficial Sequel, trying to find happiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 05:10:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19125253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingYay/pseuds/WritingYay
Summary: “Hey.” Steve nudges her in the shoulder playfully. Her eyes finally dart from trying to find Morgan’s name amongst the columns of printed children to meet his. “My lil’ bug is making her stage debut. Of course I was going to come.”“She’s playing a tree.”“She’s playing amagictree.” Steve corrects her with an overzealous arch of his eyebrows that has her giggling. “And you have no idea how excited she was to learn that she’d be playing a tree with blossom on when I picked her up from soccer.”





	(G)Olden Days

The plastic chair creaks dramatically under Steve’s weight when he lowers himself onto it, and he has to wince in apology when the lady in front of him turns around to give him a _look_.

Pepper just snorts beside him and crosses her legs neatly; the epitome of natural elegance. 

“Fuck off,” Steve murmurs under his breath, just loud enough for Pepper to hear but subtle enough to fly under the radar of the numerous toddlers dotted around them. Row after row of stressed parents lined the school’s hall. It was loud and crowded enough to seem like an airport lounge, when in fact they were sitting in the gym of Three Bridges Elementary School- rudimentary stage and all- on a sweltering Thursday night. “I’m six foot two and two hundred and twenty-four pounds, and you’re making me sit on a plastic chair that I’m pretty damn sure is going to split any minute.”

His best friend just hums and continues to read the program they’d been given at the doors, Comic Sans and all. “I didn’t make you come anywhere. You’re the one who begged me to come.”

“Hey.” Steve nudges her in the shoulder playfully. Her eyes finally dart from trying to find Morgan’s name amongst the columns of printed children to meet his. “My lil’ bug is making her stage debut. Of course I was going to come.”

“She’s playing a tree.”

“She’s playing a _magic_ tree.” Steve corrects her with an overzealous arch of his eyebrows that has her giggling. “And you have no idea how excited she was to learn that she’d be playing a tree with blossom on when I picked her up from soccer.”

Pepper shakes her head to herself, before pointing at the page in glee with a long index finger when she finally finds Morgan’s name. It simply says ‘Morgan Stark’ next to a clipart picture of a cherry tree, and Steve voices aloud his disbelief that she didn’t identify it sooner. He gets a sharp kick to the shins from a scary Louboutin that has him yelping, and the stony-faced lady in front of him flitting her eyes to him again in a murderous glare of parental disapproval.

He remembers a time when people would glance at him, do a double take, and then fix him with a stare of absolute admiration. Of course, that all stopped just over two years ago but it seemed so much longer. Sam was Captain America now, and he was the one who both men and women drooled over and the one who children squealed at across the street. Now, Steve was living a life of domestic luxury. He was happy running his own business: a farm that he invited local school groups to visit and learn about wildlife. He was playing this godfather figure to his late-boyfriend’s only daughter and he was best friends with his late-boyfriend’s widow. Steve Rogers’ life was a fucking complicated car-crash, but this chapter was something he was getting right. 

“Did you ever see plays with Tony?” 

The questions spills out of his mouth much more garbled than he’d anticipated. Pepper’s head whips up from turning her phone off in a bomb of auburn curls to frown at him in surprise. Steve just swallows and holds her gaze, making it obvious that he was asking her seriously.

“We, uh-” she trails off in a cough, the thought lines around her eyes crevicing. “In the early days, we saw a lot of Broadway productions but… well, Tony mostly got drunk and fell asleep and that was in the period of us being uh… not mutually exclusive, so he would sit there snoring and I’d fool around with strangers in the back row.”

Steve just blinks at her, long and slow, because _huh_ , that was definitely not what he was expecting. Pepper shrugs softly at his silence and looks away.

“Wait Pep,” he places a hand on her shoulder and squeezes comfortingly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t- I wasn’t aware it was a sore subject.”

That, causes her head to slide back to face him and her eyebrows to raise cheekily. “What, the untimely death of our man?”

Steve smacks a hand to his chest in mock hurt. “Ouch.”

She laughs, the vibration coming off light and sensible. “I know what you meant. Sorry. It just reminded me of how much time we wasted in the early days.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees with a small smile, because he did get that. “I understand.”

She seems to shake herself from becoming trapped in the memories as a beautiful smile climbs its way up her lips. “What about you two?”

Immediately, flashbacks of all those times they’d ventured to undisclosed, secret Shakespeare performances in back alleys explode into Steve’s mind. The time they’d watched that award-winning psychological thriller seems most prominent, and suddenly Steve can feel the phantom tingle of Tony’s burning kiss after it had finished. Nobody had warned them about the choking homoerotic tension between the two main characters, so they’d ended up rocking against each other in breathy moans as Happy had driven them home. It wasn’t the closest they’d ever gotten to having sex in one of Tony’s cars, but Steve hadn’t been able to look Happy in the eyes for weeks afterwards regardless.

“Actually, the first time we… _you know_ , was after a showing of Miss Saigon.” Steve tells her, feeling red crawl up his ears in insecurity. Pepper makes an interested sound and leans towards him in a show to get him to continue. It feels wrong, to talk about this when there’s literally a baby being fed three seats to his left but whatever, Pepper had already heard the really juicy stuff before anyway. “First time we made love.”

Pepper’s eyebrows nearly shoot into her hairline. She smacks a hand over her mouth like Steve’s told her a scandal to rival one of Trump’s. 

“No!”

Steve bites his lip suggestively. “You thought I was gonna say that it was our very first time together, didn’t you?”

Pepper laughs and pats Steve’s chest patronisingly. “I know the first time you two fucked was against the elevator in the compound after he’d nearly gotten himself killed on a mission.” She sounds slurry and love drunk, but also extremely proud of herself for knowing the gossip. “I heard the story _twice_. From him after it happened, and from you after he died.” 

“Oh god.” 

It seemed like the hall was completely full now. People Steve recognised as Morgan’s teachers were flurrying about the stage with various props, double checking that everything was ready for the show to begin. It was hard enough, Steve reasoned, to try and pull off an hour-long production with kids who hadn’t long been able to string together multiple sentences. Morgan was bright beyond her years, there was no doubting that. She also held a level of maturity that rivalled children in high school; a cynical take on the world that can only be born from early childhood pain. Losing a parent is excruciating at any age, but Morgan hadn’t understood why Tony was gone then and she certainly didn’t understand it now. 

A flash of ache rips through Steve’s lungs and he finds himself inhaling deeply. There was no use thinking about it all at this point. This evening was a happy occasion, and _damnit_ Steve was going to shower Morgan with pride and love after she finished because her Daddy couldn’t.

“He would’ve absolutely loved all this.”

Pepper’s soft voice filters through, with a sensible tone to it that has Steve nodding. Sometimes, he was fairly sure that the woman could read his thoughts. In reality, Pepper had grown to notice the tiny changes in Steve’s facial expression when he was thinking about Tony. His lips would press together like he was suppressing a scream, and his eyes would glaze over in a metaphorical barricade. They’d been great comfort to each other after it happened. Steve had been left with a gaping hole in his chest where his heart used to be, and Pepper had been left with an eerily empty house and a fantastic wild child who emulated her husband in every way. It wasn’t a surprise that they’d grown to be best friends, and co-parents to Morgan. Rhodey and Happy had seemed extremely grateful that Steve was there for them both, and he was just glad of the distraction.

“Definitely.” Steve agrees with her, as his mouth quirks up into a gentle grin. The sinking feeling that Tony would never get to applaud Morgan or embarrassingly whoop her name in the bows seemed horribly _unfair_. “I think if he had his time again, he would’ve gone into the acting industry.”

Pepper scoffs. “That’s because the man was an absolute show-off.”

“He liked the attention,” Steve corrects her with a wink. “Bless him.”

The doors behind them swing shut, and a buzz of anticipation reverberates along the chairs. 

“Did he ever practice his speeches for you?” Pepper asks.

Steve pauses, and then slowly nods. “Yeah.” His eyebrows furrow together. “I assumed it was a nervous thing?”

Pepper makes an incredulous _pfft_ and throws her head back to laugh. “Tony Stark didn’t get nervous.” Her eyes are alight with dancing mirth. “He only did that for us to study our reactions. Tony wanted to be sure of when to exaggerate his jokes to make people laugh or lower his pitch to sound serious and in control, and he based that on our first response. We weren’t practice, we were a trial run.”

Shame winds up Steve’s neck and he can feel himself gaping like a fish. “I’d just yawn through it to annoy him and then make suggestive jokes to get him to take his clothes off!”

“Me too.” Pepper gasps and cups his elbow with her palm, the artificial stage lighting bouncing off her wedding ring. “That’s because we’re smarter than him, and we refused to be his guinea pigs.”

Steve settles into a quiet display of thought before he clears his throat. “I wish I had listened now, to help him out.” He mutters and Pepper nods.

“I know.”

Before they can succumb to the past two years, Steve sighs and checks the time on his phone. 

“Fuck me, they’re taking their time, aren’t they?”

Pepper leans over to study the time and shakes her head.

“S’not supposed to start until half past.” She says, and then: “There’s something quite sexy about the theatre.”

Steve looks utterly mortified. “ _Pep!_ ”

She just rolls her eyes. “Nobody’s listening to what we’re saying. You know what I mean, though? The masquerade of pretending to be somebody else.”

He thinks about it for a moment, before shrugging. “Eh.”

“Be truthful.” Pepper angles her head to the side in a demonstration of interrogation. 

Steve was fully aware he wasn’t going to get out of this one. 

“Actually, my um- _fantasy_ is theatre related.” He shares with her, and her eyes widen in intrigue. He really shouldn’t be sharing fucking secrets about his sex life a few minutes before Morgan’s school play but Pepper’s face was a picture of amazement and the threat of being overheard was intoxicating. 

“You saucy little minx!” Pepper exclaims and proceeds to fan herself with the program. Steve chuckles and shuffles in his seat, the warm plastic now sticking to his black jeans. 

She holds his gaze for a second longer. Then, she sighs and reaches down to her feet to pick her bag off the floor. The curious twinkle in her eyes dissipates as she rummages around for her lip balm and Steve isn’t quite sure why she let it go so easily because normally-

“Oh my god,” Steve says, horrified. “You already knew.”

Pepper cringes from her forehead to her fingertips. Her skin contracts into fan lines as she tilts her head to pierce him with an apologetic and slightly remorseful grimace. 

“Yep. I told you, we were best friends when you two were getting it on so he told me _everything_. Believe me, I did _not_ want to know, but you remember how scandalous the guy was. Tony didn’t really understand the concept of privacy, especially because he was sleeping with Captain America and was proud to let the whole office know about it.”

That, was the wrong thing to say.

“The whole office?” Steve attempts to quietly shriek, but in a hall with high, echoing rafters he’s got the subtlety of a bull in a china shop. Pepper actually jumps out of her skin before she slaps a hand over Steve’s mouth, leaving him making breathy yells against her palm.

“I’m sorry,” she giggles in breathy gasps, finding the panic in Steve’s wide eyes hilarious. “I’m really sorry, I was just wanted to get you to admit it.”

She retracts her hand and Steve helicopters his arms around in hyperbolic exasperation. “Children!” He spits, but Pepper just laughs harder. His cheeks were glowing in embarrassment. Regardless, it was good to see Pepper in a positive mood. Tonight had plagued his thoughts for weeks; unsurprisingly, Pepper found these events very hard. She wanted Tony to be at parents evening and sports day and school plays. So did Steve, because sometimes he felt like he was cheating Tony out of parenthood. 

But then he’d see Morgan, his lil’ bug, and the overwhelming rush of love made him sure that Tony would be thankful he’d stepped up. 

Speaking of which-

The hall’s lights fall until they’re shrouded in darkness. Pepper reaches across to slide their fingers together as hot and bothered parents start making shushing noises to each other. A single spotlight encapsulates the stage, and then a slight Spanish woman with a script in hand sidles into the illumination. 

“Good evening, parents, siblings and friends.” She announces over the continued hubbub of people getting settled. “Welcome to our summer production of _Tile’s Wood_. Our classes have worked extremely hard to create this play for you, so we would appreciate it if you could switch off any mobile devices now. Thank you and uh…” She trails off when the tell-tale sound of someone falling over echoes from the wings. Hushed crying starts up, and Pepper and Steve share a glance. “Enjoy!”

An hour later, Steve is aching, sweating and itchy from his jeans sticking to the melting plastic. More importantly though, he’s brimming with pride.

“You were amazing!” Pepper squeals as she gathers Morgan up in her arms. The child is dressed head to toe in black, her cardboard cut-out of the blossom tree long discarded to the side. “Oh my talented baby star!” She presses multiple kisses to Morgan’s warm temple.

“Look out Broadway.” Steve nods with a huge smile. “Well done lil’ bug.”

Morgan beams at them before her eyebrows knit together in disbelief.

“But Momma,” Morgan complains and brings her little fists down on Pepper’s shoulder. “I forgot the words to the Walking Song!”

Pepper sends Steve a panicked look of _oh fuck which bit was the Walking Song_ so he swoops in by tickling Morgan’s side. 

“We didn’t notice,” he tells her, and opens his arms when she makes grabby hands for him. Her bony knees dig into his organs as she squirms on his hip, still obviously bouncing with energy. Steve did _not_ envy Pepper having to get her to bed tonight. “Honestly Morgs, it wasn’t obvious. You were amazing. One hundred percent the best tree there.”

Her eyes light up until they’re twinkling with happiness. Then, she scrunches her nose up in disgust and picks at the sweat covered t-shirt sticking to her collarbones. “I’m all sticky.”

Pepper nods and bops her daughter on the nose. “We’ll just go and say thank you very much to Miss Martinez and then we’ll go home and get you into a cool bath.”

The young girl gives her a double thumbs up, and then she’s softly pulling on the end of Steve’s short blonde hair. “Are you coming home with us to read me a bedtime story?”

She seems so innocent and so excited by the prospect that there’s no way Steve could say no.

“If you would like me to read you a bedtime story, that’s something I can happily do for the best young actress in New York.”

Morgan thanks him, before her head falls onto his shoulder to press her hot nose into the junction of his tanned neck. She yawns, and Steve tightens his hold across her back. 

Pepper’s already out by the car congratulating one of Morgan’s friends when they join her. Her gaze softens at the way Morgan’s wound herself around Steve’s torso, and he wishes with all his heart that they could stay like this forever. 

Morgan was _so_ lucky to have three parents.

**Author's Note:**

> This could maybe be classed as a sequel to He Got Away From You and Me (a man we love) but eh
> 
> Hope you enjoyed :)


End file.
